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garbletext writes "A new version of Google Maps introduced this week includes a beta feature dubbed My Location that was designed to simulate the GPS experience on mobile phones and handheld devices that do not include GPS hardware, like Apple's iPhone. Essentially, the My Location feature takes information broadcast from mobile towers near non-GPS equipped mobile phones to approximate the device's current location on the map down to about 10 city blocks. "It's not GPS, but it comes pretty close (approximately 1000m close, on average)," the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant explained on its website. "We're still in beta, but we're excited to launch this feature and are constantly working to improve our coverage and accuracy." The My Location feature is currently available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices."

The My Location feature is currently available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices. However, it is not yet compatible with Apple's iPhone.

Still, Apple has promised to continuously update and improve upon the feature set of its inaugural mobile handset, making it more than likely that the feature will turn up once it emerges from the beta stage.

I've used the service on my Blackberry 8800 in downtown toronto, and in my experience I was able to narrow my location down to within 10 meters or so on any given downtown street.
It even points in the direction you're moving
Pretty neet to have it using the satelite view as well. Very quick and responsive, and you can always just press '0' to go to 'my location'
Works well using directions too... you just tell it to use 'my location' as a starting or destination point.

Yes, but people running the MyLocation version who DO have GPS are helping those of us with Blackberry Curves that don't have built in GPS. Google is taking the GPS data, correlating it to the tower identifiers the cellphone is picking up at the time, and building a database for triangulation. Not only can they provide that data to their users, but they then could resell that data like Navteq sells driving direction data.

Where does it say that they do that? This would be an extremely stupid idea. They already know EXACTLY where all the towers are and how best to triangulate the signals - they don't need to collect that from Blackberry users. Are you sure someone isn't having you on? Sounds made up to me. Please link to your source.

Where does it say that they do that? This would be an extremely stupid idea. They already know EXACTLY where all the towers are and how best to triangulate the signals - they don't need to collect that from Blackberry users. Are you sure someone isn't having you on? Sounds made up to me. Please link to your source.

Mobile towers are placed by operators throughout an area to provide coverage for their users. Each of these towers has its own individual coverage area, usually split into three non-overlapping sections known as "cells." These cells come with identification numbers, but no location information. Google takes geo-contextual information [from anonymous GPS-readings, etc] and associates thi

lol that's not what it will tell you. When you're inside a building it will tell you you're 2 miles away from the tower. And in the elevator it will tell you you're 4 miles away from the tower. And as soon as you walk out, you're suddenly one mile from the tower! All it can go by is the signal strength as far as I know. That's so stupid. With one tower, it can tell you you're somewhere on a ring around the tower. With two it can approximate a linear area that you're in. With 3 towers it can tell you

Wow, Google is better than I thought. Now, the (my) body will be in two places at once.(I had to borrow a modified phrase from Captain Crain of the Seaview, when the enemy agent in Sickbay hosed their INS (inertial navigation system), in the episode "Hail to the Chief"; her brain-cooking MK-G machine at full power threw off Seaview's compass in the Control Room (proximity of the MK-G), but not in Maneuvering Control... Crain got reports on the two directions, and, frustrated as hell, he proclaimed to Adm. N

Even with 3, it won't be accurate because signal strength goes up and down.

It won't be "accurate" regardless, but it will still be ballpark. Your examples are nisleading. If you're in a building, or an elevator for that matter (per your example), the signal strength is degraded for all nearby towers and thus you can still be triangulated in the same way.

Except your GPS-enabled phone won't be able to reach its satellites *at all* inside that elevator, which makes your Google approximation better by process of elimination;)

The only solution is GPS + IMU (inertial motion unit), which will track your movements via accelerometer while you are without GPS signal, and resync when it reacquires. I look forward to buying my own $5000, 4-lb phone!

Currently there's no good way to build an IMU that's small enough to fit in your average handset, let alone cheaply. Heck, we'd have trouble building one that'd fit in 5 handsets. Accelerometers vary greatly - you can get really rough ones like the MEMS accelerometer you see in the Wii-mote, or you can get extremely, extremely accurate ones that can maintain highly accurate positioning even without GPS assistance for extended periods of time. Clearly, f

Could we not use the same accelerometer built into the iPhone to detect landscape/portrait changes? Perhaps it's not extremely accurate, but I'd be interested to get my hands on an iPhone for a week or two just to code something up to try to handle inertial navigation to see what the results are.

I think in some cases it doesn't solely use signal strength. I seem to remember reading a couple of years back that on one network, it usesd the latency of the signal to estimate your distance from the tower if you're connecting from a 3G phone (eg it effectively pings your phone and measures the delay in microseconds). The masts themselves often have 3 aerials (which is sometimes easily visible [mediastock.co.uk]) which are focused in three different directions. This means they also know roughly which side of the mast you ar

Location on a phone has always been potentially very useful as a part of user context. You might not be able to use it as a turn by turn mapping guide, but what the stupid mobile operators forget is that other people could think of useful location services. Example: Travel Agent. I used to fly from Nice to London via Frankfurt a lot. My connection in Frankfurt is at 9:15. If my phone reports that I am in Frankfurt at 9:30 and the flight left at 9:15, then I missed my flight. An application could use this to automatically rebook me.

I order a taxi from an office. Today I wait on the street because I do not know within a minute when he will arrive. With location, when the taxi enters the same cell as me, it could trigger an SMS for me to go down to see taxi. Saving me time and money.

Wap Link: Give me the weather HERE. I remember years ago showing a friend the weather forecast on the phone. After I typed in the City, he asked why? He was right of course , the phone knew what city I was in.

Going for a train - rush or have a cup of coffee and wait? Push the button "Next Train" and application knows you are in work not home and tell you next train from work to home. Or vice a versa.

Too many people stupidly believe that location has no real use unless it can locate a person within meters. The granularity is fine as a basis to give contextual input to many many app.

I could go on and on, but for 7 years the mobile operators have blown their lead in this space all because the idiot marketing people believe that if THEY cannot imagine a service no would could possibly want such a service. I had to laugh at Vodafone idiot CEO in a recent interview discussing how he "owned" location as a service and Apple did not. He owned it for 7 years and did fuck all with it.

It's also nice for mapping. No, seriously. If you do the map from [my location] then you only have to add the destination address. It saves one entry, which may be a big deal if you don't know your zip code or you can't see an address number (how long is Main St. anyway?)."Doesn't do much good if your location is a half mile away," you may say. Well it's much easier to move your starting point to your real location than it would have been to find it from scratch. You're already on the screen instead of

So, hypothetically speaking, if I had been driving to my relatives' house on, say, Thanksgiving, and I possibly took a right turn instead of a left one and ended up 3 miles away before turning back, I was, in theory, also pretty close?

Not every invention you see started off being perfectly usable. That's what development is for.
The very cellphones that one will be using this on were not exactly convenient to carry around once upon a time, were they?

Yes, 1KM is pretty close for a non-GPS-equipped phone.Think about the workflow - Google Maps can automatically zoom you in to a really small area of global mapping data, and in most cases you're going to want to browse 1KM or greater anyway to have an overview of where you are, what the nearby roads are, and where you are going. You can easily zoom in and out or scroll around from there, getting to exactly what you want to view in seconds.

For a toy, it has been fun to use so far. Of course this is just with locations I know. The truth in the end is that there's room for a lot of improvement. Alas, for something that is free, it is pretty sweet.

Lost person calling Google (not that you can really call them, but still)

Lost person: Hi, I'm lost in the middle of nowhere. Can you tell me how to get back to the city?
Google: Sure, where are you?
Lost person: I just told you...I'm in the middle of nowhere?
Google: Sorry sir, but if you don't know where you are then I can't give you directions. I can however give you...an exciting offer from one of our featured advertisers about a book that details a journey through "The Middle of Nowhere"

If you do have GPS on your phone you'll find that it probably IS "useful if you're truly lost". For those that don't have GPS and until they can get the triangulation between towers to work better you might be right that it's just a toy. However, it will certain save some time bringing up a map of your general vicinity.

See your location on the map, with or without GPS. Save time and tedious keystrokes finding where you are, what's around you, and how to get there.

It is indeed very useful, if you can eyeball either sat imagery or a topo map (both of which are available from Google of course) you can easily identify exactly where you're at. The problem with doing this (normally) is two fold. First, you have to have access to the map (Google of course had solved this already). Second, you have to know what map to view, or in this case, what portion of the Earth to look at and establish you location. In this case, Google is simply pulling the right map for you...you

http://www.nav4all.com/ [nav4all.com] - I haven't tried this so I can't vouch for it, but it looks interesting and is also free.

Note that when people say "GPS" in the context of cellphones, they are usually talking about GPRS/GSM location-based services which use celltower triangulation. There are very few cellphones that have GPS satellite antennas, although there are a few Bluetooth GPS add-on devices available.

I believe that is true only for the GSM carriers. Most CDMA carriers put some GPS hardware on the phones that, together with information from the tower, can compute the position (on the provider's side).

Nokia have quite a few available. I tried to use the 'search by feature' facility on this [nokia.com] site to figure out how many, but I just don't believe the results. I know there are at least 'several' though.

Some of them also have an assisted gps feature which seems to work similarly to this new google feature, though I don't think it works at all if the phone doesn't have gps. I read somewhere that Nokia intend to implement it on all their GPS pho

http://www.navizon.com/ [navizon.com] is another alternative that uses a community-based approach to build its database of cell tower and wifi access point locations. Users who want to use the service pay a small fee, while users who have a GPS can get paid for contributing location data.

Since Navizon also combines wifi access points (which are generally have shorter ranges), it can theoretically narrow down your position even more accurately than relying just on cell towers.

The usefulness will come from the fact that you now have a localized map of roughly where you are. As long as you think of it as a personalized map service instead of a GPS replacement service, it still quite handy

The usefulness will come from the fact that you now have a localized map of roughly where you are. As long as you think of it as a personalized map service instead of a GPS replacement service, it still quite handy

Or, you could use Google Maps as it exists right now, look at a nearby landmark, like an address or a street sign, punch that into the "Find location" field and find exactly where you are with almost no guesswork. Sure, the tech is interesting, but currently it doesn't do anything that you can

I could also heat up my leftovers in an oven instead of a microwave. Having this feature, saves the user time and effort, which in any circumstance is more than just interesting, but useful.

Actually, if the address is the same as the one you last put in, it requires the exact same amount of button presses to get the map centered exactly on your current position as it does to get it centered somewhere within a kilometer or two. If you've entered it before, it only takes two more button presses to get gre

No, it's not going to tell you your exact location. But if you need to get somewhere it can give you direct starting within 1000 feet of where you are.

It is NOT for Geo caching, or to give you constant real time updates as you hurl down the road.So if you are in downtown Toronto and decide you want to check out the new book store in BF Canada, you can get a close start position on Google maps. If you can't figure it our from there, then please stop using technology.Any technology.

Incorrect. According to the summary, it's within 1000m (1km, 3280 feet, 7143 linguine, 108 double decker buses, or more than 7 brontosaurii) of where you are - significantly more than 1000 feet, and much less useful.

It's also a good starting point when you bring up the map. A map of the surrounding area of 1000m x 1000m in your palm is very useful. You could hilight all the bookstores or subway stations within that area, or if you're lost, you might recognize the street name you're on at a glance.

Google Maps for mobile devices automatically searches with the assumption that the center of your screen is where you're looking for. The map scrolls very easily, so you can move the map to the general area where you think you are and then punch in your search. It works. I do it all time.

You can get more exact results if you look at a street address and punch it into the "Find location" feature. The technology is cool. I think the concept of being able to automatically acquire my position without any add

If it's based on the deployment of Cell towers, it's not exactly a *Global* Positioning System. I think GPSs are more useful in remote areas than urban ones and probably less dangerous [betanews.com] there too.

I think this product might lead people into a false sense of security:

"Hey, I think were lost out here in the middle of the Oregon woods in a blizzard. Better check the GPS on my iPhone.

Agreed. My Blackberry Curve uses T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home to tunnel the voice and data over WiFi when available. Even though my phone showed that it was enabled (UMA icon active), MyLocation is still pulling the tower information from the GSM chipset.

It may not be as accurate as full-on GPS, but now you can do searches for nearby businesses...without having to type in your location. I don't know how many times I've been looking for something NEARBY and either didn't know what zip code or city I was in (keep in mind in a place like LA, something might be nearby but technically in a different city, and sometimes it wouldn't find things unless you gave it specific locations - I know this from experience). I finally resorted to doing a browser Google search because the maps app just wasn't finding stuff.

I've also noticed that now, when you search without putting in a location (i.e. "pizza" instead of "pizza los angeles ca") it will search the nearby area visible on the map. With the previous version, for some reason, it kept giving me locations in the UK when I didn't specify a city/state in the US instead of just searching the area of the map that was currently visible.

Too bad the "My Location" feature doesn't currently work on Sprint Touch and Mogul phones (whether this is a Google or Sprint thing, who knows...) as it says the phones aren't reporting any cell towers (you can see this in Help>About where it says "myl: N/A". Oh, well...hopefully it will work sometime in the future.

Where are they getting the information about what tower you're connected to and how strong the signal is? If it's from the app running on the phone, and you selected to install the app (plus agree to a very long disclaimer) then I have fewer issues. But if they are getting the information from the phone company or from the network requests (e.g. http headers added by phone company) then I'd question if the phone company is giving away private information on their customers.

And if they get the information from the app on the phone, I'd be curious of what api's there are to do this ourselves and if that access infringes on some kind of separation between the phone and app that users and phone companies may want (e.g. apps dialing 900 numbers or racking up charges for sms messages without your knowledge).

(And FYI, testing this on a Sprint Treo 600 claims to download the 2.0 version, but it's really the 1.2 version after the installer runs, so it doesn't work for me yet.)

Google getting tower identifier information from the GSM chipset. You can pull it through a programming interface.
BUT! The problem is, those tower identifiers have no geo-location information. So how does Google get it? Easily. The have the MyLocation Google Maps client running on GPS-enabled devices send back GPS coordinates with tower identifier information. As more and more people have the client running, Google gets a bigger database to play with. Once a significant dataset has been compiled, MyLocati

I just wanted to add, the tower identified information isn't private. The phone has this information the same as it has diagnostic information from the tower on signal strength. Just as your phone can tell the tower signal strength, the tower send back info on how well it can pick up your phone. This is why phones placed near speakers will make the speakers hum when a call is incoming. The tower is commanding the phone to ramp up it's radio to a higher power output (something it doesn't need to know while s

Of course the phone knows that tower it's connected to, though technically all it really needs to know is what frequency has the best signal. The towers and the phone company have to keep track of what tower the phone is connected to, not necessarily the phone. But I digress, lets make the likely correct assumption that the phone knows exactly what tower it's connected to.The point of the post is that phone companies are very sensitive about applications running on their phones wrecking havoc on their net

The purpose of this is not to tell you where you are. It's to get you to the right map, without needing to type a location using clumsy cell-phone input. Once you're looking at a map, you can figure out where you are by looking at street signs. Think of it as a road atlas which always opens to the right page.

My Location actually WORKS !My Location works outside of the USA (at least in the UK)well put together app not a resource hog on my symbian Nokia Series 60 v2 phone (e50)

BAD

you cant do ANYTHING with "My Location" except watch a pretty blue point on the mapNo My Location for route findingNo traffic outside USARoute does not work for a found location it adds a ")" at the end for some reason.

Nice but you need to actaully finish it or it's just a plaything

I am curious what Database of cell locations is google using do you gut think ?(the phone companies often lie about locations in there headers so you have to build your own (wiggle) or use OFCOM in the uk)

Given that Google maps only finds my location on my GPS equipped Blackberry 8800 about 25% of the time, it will be nice to have an alternative. Now if they could just get traffic information that was worth a damn and actually works consistently. I haven't been able to get traffic information for my commute for the last two days. It says "No Traffic Information Available." despite the fact that I'm in downtown Los Angeles. Trust me, there is all sorts of traffic info available... I'm sitting in it.;)

A few other very interesting features were released this week for Google Maps... and I'm sorry that this story is all we got on/. so far. Here's a copy from the site in my sig.

Google Maps Adds TerrainGoogle Lat Lon Blog [blogspot.com] announces the addition of terrain to their free Google Maps [google.com] site. In addition to adding the Terrain button, they've removed the Hybrid button. They explain, "You may notice in this screenshot that the handy "Hybrid" button, which shows satellite images overlaid with labels and roads, seems to have gone missing. Don't worry -- this view can now be accessed by clicking the "Satellite" button and checking the "Show labels" check box that will appear under the "Satellite" button."

I killed the old version I had (1.7-something), downloaded 2.0, fired it up. Nothing. "Your location is currently unavailable." Rebooted the phone, now it works great. It's showing the blue dot about half a block from my actual location. I'm well within the grey circle around the dot. Pretty awesome for not using GPS.

OK - I just tried it out - it put me 650-750 meters from my actual location. It seems to have drawn a 1k radius around the dot indicating that you are in that general area. To be honest, this looks very useful to me - Roll on a windows mobile API for me to use it in my own apps without paying license to someone. There isn't a pizza, taxi, video store or motorway (freeway) junction that would be selected incorrectly from using this location rather than my actual one.

"Place Lab is software providing low-cost, easy-to-use device positioning for location-enhanced computing applications. Place Lab tries to provide positioning which works worldwide, both indoors and out (unlike GPS which only works well outside). Place Lab clients can determine their location privately without constant interaction with a central service (unlike badge tracking or mobile phone location services where t

Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) is the world's first location platform to use the native 802.11 radio already on a mobile device to deliver accurate positioning across the US. And soon the world.

I believe Sprint has had something like this for a while now. "Sprint Family Locator" [nextel.com] lets you see where your kids are using GPS, or, when unavailable, cell signal approximation.

My understanding is that many GPS apps use "Assisted GPS" like this, triangulating from cell towers for location help, since traditional GPS requires a clear view of the sky and that's not always practical (you're indoors, or in an urban or actual canyon, etc).

Stupid I know, but until slash starts cradling us with some form of protection, I wrote the followingjavascript:(function(){var i,x,l,h;
for(i=0;x=document.links[i];++i){
l=x.href.toLowerCase();
if(l.indexOf('google')>=0 && l.indexOf('btni')>=0) {
x.href = x.href.replace(/btni/gi, "btnG");
h=document.

I downloaded it on my phone (samsung m500 on sprint) and while it's definitely the new version (double checked in the help/about) it says My Location isn't supported on this device. Also they changed the buttons around, it seems to only use 0-9 and the 4way directional, rather than using the button in the middle of the 4way and the * and # keys.

Rumor has it there will be no new version for PalmOS, despite the "download version 2.0 on your palm Treo 700p here" link on the site. But, you know, rumors are rumors and maybe somebody just screwed up the web site...

I think it's only supported in some locations - something at the end of their little video [youtube.com] suggested as much; "You might get an error message. If so, try again at another location nearby."

I get the message, "Your current location is temporarily unavailable." (which made me smile).